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by MMAjunkie.com Staff on May 17, 2008 at 2:07 pm ET
Sure, it may be a pipe dream -- the type of fantasy match-up that mixed-martial-arts fans can only dream about.
So, when we posted our latest MMAjunkie.com/"Inside MMA" poll -- "Should the UFC allow a fight between Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva?" -- we were bracing for some of the most lopsided results in our polling history.
Sure enough, the results were lopsided. But not in the manner we expected.
Tens of thousands of votes were cast for the poll, and surprisingly, most of them were against the bout and didn't want to see the UFC's middleweight title-holder meet the UFC's welterweight champ.
In fact, nearly three-quarters of the voters -- 72 percent -- don't think the UFC should schedule the St. Pierre-Silva fight, and only 28 percent were in favor of it.
"I guess they don't want to see either one lose," host Kenny Rice concluded.
The results baffled panelists Renato "Babalu" Sobral, Gary "Big Daddy" Goodridge and Martin de Jong, as well. Granted, they didn't necessarily think the fight should be scheduled either -- but they assumed the MMA enthusiasts would want it.
Give 'em credit them, though. The fans know that some things are better left to the imagination.
WHAT DOES THE PLAYGROUND THINK?

Dear CanadianMMA Fan,
The following is an important letter we recently sent to the Ministry of Health Promotion (MHP) of Ontario. As you may already be aware, our application for Amateur MMA is currently under review by the MHP. The purpose of the letter below is to further emphasize the safety of our proposed Amateur MMA rules.
As always, stay tuned to www.canadianmma.com for the latest information about MMA happenings in Ontario, Canada. We very much appreciate your continued support and we believe that as painstaking as this process has been we will achieve our goals of legalizing MMA in Ontario.
Also, be sure to tune to Global TV tomorrow night, Saturday, May 17 at 7pm to watch a new documentary called "The Real Fight Club" which touches upon some of the legalization issues surrounding MMA in Ontario.

For the first time in U.S. mixed-martial-arts history, a female fighter has tested positive for steroids.
Carina Damm, who recently defeated Sophie Bagherdai at an April 3 Fatal Femmes Fighting event, tested positive for elevated levels of Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid that develops naturally in the human body.
However, according to the California State Athletic Commission's Bill Douglas, Damm came in at 37.9 ng/mL, which far exceeded the 2 ng/mL threshold, after being tested at the Los Angeles event.
Douglas today submitted the results via email.
Damm (9-3), a four-year fight veteran who recently signed a three-fight contract with Elite Xtreme Combat, has been suspended one year (through April 2, 2009) and fined $2,500. She's the first U.S. female fighter to fail a test due to steroids, though she can request an appeal of the suspension.
The Brazilian was riding a four-fight win streak and was scheduled to next fight Debi Purcell at a June 27 ShoXC event.

The E:60 crew talking about Carano and MMA. These people have no idea what they are talking about, but at least it is prime time coverage.
Two parts
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3394607&categoryId=3060647&n8pe6c=2
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3394683&categoryId=3060647&n8pe6c=1

As he prepares for what is being advertised as his last fight in the organization at UFC 84, Tito Ortiz is, as he so often has, talking about his belief that UFC fighters should make more money.
Ortiz told MMA Mania that he thinks fighters should make about 30% of revenues, and Michael Rome of Bloody Elbow crunches some numbers and says that would be a significant pay raise from where they are now.
But while it would be significantly more than they make now, it would be nowhere near as much as athletes in other sports make. Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal reports that baseball players make 51% to 55% of MLB revenues, football players make 59% of NFL revenues, basketball players make 57% of NBA revenues and hockey players make 55.6% of NHL revenues.
That's not an apples-to-apples comparison, though, because UFC pays a lot more of its own costs for things like TV broadcasts than other sports leagues do. No one would suggest that UFC should pay more than half of its revenue to its fighters.

Former UFC heavyweight champ Randy Couture was a guest on the Opie and Anthony Show with, of all people, Pat Cooper, and he discussed payment for mixed martial arts fighters (Warning, foul language):
(Via MMA Mania) When asked if the money is getting better, Couture said, "I think that's one of the things that needs to change in our sport."
Couture then added that every single UFC fighter combined makes less money for all of the organization's pay-per-view shows than Floyd Mayweather makes for one boxing match. (Mayweather is the second-highest-paid boxer in the world; Oscar De La Hoya is first.)
Couture said he has "no beef" with UFC President Dana White, but he just wants to get paid a fair market value for his work and that won't happen while he's under contract to UFC. I think Couture is basically right that the fighters in UFC aren't paid enough, but I also worry that fighters leaving UFC for greener pastures would be good for their short-term financial gain but bad for the long-term health of the sport.
One other interesting note from the interview: When Cooper asked Couture whether his opponents are ever afraid, Couture said, "Some guys are, you can see that."

Our latest MMAjunkie.com poll results surprised just about everyone, including the panel on this past Friday's edition of "Inside MMA."
Last week we ran a simple but what proved to be a telling question: "Have you attended a live MMA event in the past year."
The results were revealed on "Inside MMA," and they should have fight promoters -- especially those who plan to rely solely on ticket sales -- taking notice.
When all the votes were tallied, 51 percent of respondents said they haven't been to a show in the past year while 49 percent said they had. That means a big segment of the MMA fan base -- one committed enough to frequent an MMA news site and weekly MMA TV show -- hasn't bought a single ticket to an MMA event in the past 12 months.

Mixed martial arts has a perception problem in the United States. From the guy who runs CBS saying it was a mistake to sign a deal with EliteXC to athletic commission officials saying there's more drug use in MMA than in boxing to negative stories in the Washington Post and Associated Press, a lot of casual American sports fans are left with the impression that the sport is savage and dangerous.
But the reality is that MMA in the United States is far more advanced than MMA in other countries in terms of taking the health of fighters seriously. Take this from Dave Meltzer's piece about this weekend's Dream.3 show:
Japanese MMA is still a completely different animal than the UFC, because the former has no governmental regulation. There is no steroid testing. Many of the matches are made at the last minute, and in one case, a fighter, Melvin Manhoef, was in the ring just two weeks after taking a knockout in a kickboxing match, something that would never be allowed in a major U.S. commission state.

I just couldn't understand why he was playing kickboxer. It was ridiculous. Only Frank could tell you what Frank was thinking. I'm not going to make any disparaging remarks towards him because he flew me out there and everything to train with him, but honestly, I didn't see that being what the gameplan was initially," stated MMA veteran Shonie Carter as he weighed in on Frank Shamrock's loss to Cung Le. Check out what else he had to say as Carter, who helped Shamrock train for the fight, talks about a potential rematch between the two and shares some advice for any young fighter who may be cut by or looking to get in with the UFC.

THE GREAT FIGHT NORTH
News and Notes from Canada
John Alessio may have lost more than a match when he was disqualified against Brock Larson at WEC 33 in March.
The fight with Larson was the last on Alessio’s contract, and, according to the Canadian veteran, negotiations with the Zuffa LLC-owned organization have stalled, prompting him to consider offers from other promotions.
“I’m actually wondering myself what’s going on,” Alessio said. “I figured I would have heard something by now. They offered me the rematch with Larson, but it’s now up to my manager to negotiate. It’s going to come down to money and if they want to sign me long-term or not.”
Also features The Crow, Sam Stout & others

topics covered:
Gesias “JZ” Calvancante And The Dream Grand Prix
Din Thomas Released From UFC; WEC Bound?
July 5 Event Could Be Called UFC: ATT
Other News & Notes from American Top Team:
Match-ups featuring American Top Team fighters:

highlights from the article
Lindland said he'd heard that Thiemann's campaign consultant, Elaine Franklin (who many know as former U.S. Senator Bob Packwood's wife), told several Republican leaders that Lindland was a convicted felon.
She also stated, "Although I have a copy of your prior conviction, I have never intended to use it in my campaign and still do not."
That "prior conviction," said Lindland, was for a Class 3 misdemeanor he received as a 19-year-old while working in the produce section of a local grocery store. Lindland said he was told to throw out loads of old produce, but instead kept about $30 dollars worth.
"I thought, 'this is a waste, I've got a lot of hungry wrestlers who'll eat this stuff,' but it wasn't my produce to give away," said Lindland, who received 30 hours of community service, a year of probation and was fined $20 for the offense.
"I've asked Elaine Franklin to publicly go on the record that she knew this was a lie when she spread it," said Lindland. "If she doesn't do that within 48 hours, I'll file a defamation lawsuit against her, but I hope it doesn't come to that."

The Barnett vs. Rizzo rematch has been confirmed for the debut card of the Affliction Fighting organization. The venue was set to be the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX.. but HDNet Fights may have pulled its support of the card.

It appears that Nog and Mir won't be the TUF8 coaches (if they were it would be an 11 month layoff for both of them)
Perhaps Arlovski will re-sign and get a title shot vs. Big Nog. Otherwise I see him fighting Mir or the Vera/Werdum winner.

Hollywood has hijacked mixed martial arts. Think Karate Kid meets Bring it On (you know, that cheerleading movie).
According to Never Back Down, the world of underground fighting works a little something like this: boy (and likely Calvin Klein underwear model) moves to a new town. Boy lusts after innocent, cute girl. Boy encounters bully. Boy works his butt off to beat up bully. Boy becomes hero.
How quaint.
"That stuff just doesn't happen in real life," says Bobby Razak. "The guys in the movie are not fighters, the whole story is cheesy, and in my 13, 14 years in MMA, I've never seen any story like that."
For dedicated MMA followers, the film is a double-edged sword, cheaply, and inaccurately, promoting a sport that's growing but still struggling for acceptance. And Razak understands first-hand the battles the sport has endured -- in and out of the cage.
As a former MMA fighter, he not only admires the sport, but also has beared the sport's die-hard regimen. Judo, boxing, martial arts, ultimate fighting -- he's done it all and probably seen it all. And as an independent filmmaker, he's also put it all on screen.
His first documentary, Rites of Passage, which was screened at the Sundance Festival, follows the lives of multiple fighters, combining personal drama with in-the-ring action. Delving into the technique and tactics of MMA, his next film, Pit Fight, was the first to capture bare-knuckle fighting live on 35 mm film. Follow-ups Invincible Warrior and Underground NHB earned him recognition among many in the MMA circle as he followed star Chuck Liddell and John Lewis on their quest for the best techniques and bare-knuckle brawls in Holland.
Warning: there's nothing comparable to "the Iceman" in Never Back Down. Yes, Hollywood's take is, well, tacky, but it's also a big-screen advertisement for the sport. Capturing the real stuff, the hard-core fights and psychological unrest is a task Razak has taken on himself. And so far, his popularity is growing almost as fast the sport itself.
Razak recently inked a deal with Time Warner, the parent company of SI.com, to put his latest mixed martial arts reality series Underground Kings of MMA on the media megacorp's video-on-demand channel. Starting in May, the series will be carried on six cable networks and syndicated across broadband and mobile. That's 22 episodes of complete 24/7 access to the training routines, unseen brawls, mental breakdowns, fighter-manager clashes, legal conflicts and high-profile matchups of many of the MMA's best: Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Frank Shamrock, Riddick Bowe and Lewis.

There is no question that the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series - better known as ‘TUF’ - has been the most influential vehicle for promoting the success of UFC, and to a lesser extent MMA in general, in North America. The careers of most contestants have been boosted like they could have never imagined. Even the ones who never came close to winning were still given a chance to prove their worth in the UFC, and many of the fighters released from the UFC were instantly picked up by smaller organizations simply because of the newly acquired name recognition.
With the show now in it’s seventh season, let’s take a look back at where it all started. The first season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ took place in 2005, and featured 8 middleweights and 8 lightheavyweights competing for two ’six figure’ contracts with the UFC. Most of the contestants were virtually unknown in the MMA world at the time, yet all are now very familiar names for most fans...

Shinya Aoki, who earned his spot in the second round of the DREAM Lightweight Grand Prix with a recent victory over Gesias “J.Z.” Calvancante, will be allowed to continue on in the tournament despite recent injuries. His bout with Katsuhiko Nagata will, however, be moved from its planned date of May 11 on the DREAM.3 fight card, to the DREAM.4 event on June 15. The promotion announced the move at a press conference on Monday.
According to his doctor, Aoki suffered a cervical injury in his March 15 bout with Calvancante, which impaired the feeling in his right arm. He also severely bruised a rib on April 29 in his second bout with the Brazilian. As such, he will not be allowed to fight on May 11.
This is great news...FEAR THE STRETCHY PANTS...WAR AOKI!!!

TKO Championship Fighting is excited to announce the line-up for TKO34: SIMS vs. BOSSE which is set for Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. The main event features notorious, three-time UFC veteran, Wes Sims against perennial fan favorite, Steve Bosse. This is a colossal showdown in TKO’s heavyweight division which is guaranteed to be surrounded by lots of excitement, talk and drama. The co-main event is a terrific fight between undefeated, Adrian Wooley against the up and coming, Danny Martinez in a battle for the new Bantamweight Championship! Also on the card will be a fan friendly matchup between devastating strikers, Yannick Galipeau and Stephane Dube.